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Davies, Ronald B.; Martin, Julien; Parenti, Mathieu; Toubal, Farid

Working Paper

Knocking on Tax Haven's Door: Multinational Firmsand Transfer Pricing

CESifo Working Paper, No. 5132

Provided in Cooperation with:Ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich

Suggested Citation: Davies, Ronald B.; Martin, Julien; Parenti, Mathieu; Toubal, Farid (2014) :Knocking on Tax Haven's Door: Multinational Firms and Transfer Pricing, CESifo WorkingPaper, No. 5132, Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich

This Version is available at:http://hdl.handle.net/10419/107293

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Knocking on Tax Haven’s Door: Multinational Firms and Transfer Pricing

Ronald B. Davies Julien Martin

Mathieu Parenti Farid Toubal

CESIFO WORKING PAPER NO. 5132 CATEGORY 1: PUBLIC FINANCE

DECEMBER 2014

An electronic version of the paper may be downloaded • from the SSRN website: www.SSRN.com • from the RePEc website: www.RePEc.org

• from the CESifo website: Twww.CESifo-group.org/wp T

CESifo Working Paper No. 5132

Knocking on Tax Haven’s Door: Multinational Firms and Transfer Pricing

Abstract This paper analyzes the transfer pricing of multinational firms. We propose a simple framework in which intra-firm prices may systematically deviate from arm’s length prices for two motives: i) pricing to market, and ii) tax avoidance. Multinational firms may decide not to avoid taxes if the risk to be sanctioned is high compared to the tax gap. Using detailed French firm-level data on arm’s length and intra-firm export prices, we find that both mechanisms are at work. The sensitivity of intra-firm prices to foreign taxes is reinforced once we control for pricing-to-market determinants. Most importantly, we find almost no evidence of tax avoidance if we disregard exports to tax havens. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that tax avoidance through transfer pricing amounts to about 1% of the total corporate taxes collected by tax authorities in France. The lion’s share of this loss is driven by the exports of 450 firms to ten tax havens. As such, it may be possible to achieve significant revenue increases with minimal cost by targeting enforcement.

JEL-Code: F230, H250, H260, H320.

Keywords: transfer pricing, tax haven, pricing to market.

Ronald B. Davies

Department of Economics University College Dublin / Ireland

ronbdavies@gmail.com

Julien Martin Department of Economics

University of Québec / Montréal / Canada martin.julien@uqam.ca

Mathieu Parenti

CORE & IRES UCLouvain Belgium

mathieu.parenti@uclouvain.be

Farid Toubal Department of Economics

Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan 94235 Cachan cedex France

ftoubal@ens.cachan.fr December 2014 We wish to thank Andrew Bernard, Kristian Behrens, Robert Cline, Paola Conconi, Anca Cristea, Meredith Crowley, Lorraine Eden, Peter Egger, Lionel Fontagné, James Hines, Lindsay Oldenski, Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné, Nicholas Sly, and seminar participants at CEPII, the “competitiveness and corporate taxation: impact on multinationals’ activities” conference (Banque de France) , 2014 EEIT Conference (U. Oregon), ETSG, HEC Montréal, Midwest Meeting (Kansas U.), the “National Institutions in a Globalized World” workshop (Lille), Saint Petersburg, UQAM, and ULB for helpful comments. Financial support was provided by the iCODE Institute (Idex Paris-Saclay) and the FRQSC grant 2015-NP-182781.

1 IntroductionA wealth of empirical evidence finds that, within a multinational enterprise (MNE), reportedprofits vary systematically with local corporate tax rates.1 This may be due to several typesof efforts within the firm, including transfer pricing. From the perspective of tax authorities,internal transactions between related parties should be valued at the market price: this isthe arm’s length principle (see OECD 2012, for details). That said, as described in OECD(2010) there are numerous ways of determining the arm’s length price, including the use ofcomparable prices, and cost-plus methods, among others. Thus, the flexibility in these rulesallows firms to choose transfer pricing methodologies which support the use of internal priceswhich shift profits from high- to low-tax countries.2 This is in addition to the potential foroutright tax evasion via transfer pricing.

Direct empirical evidence of tax-induced transfer pricing however is scarce. Identify-ing such a strategy faces two major difficulties. While multinationals’ exports are directlyobservable, detailed information on the prices of products and their modes of transaction –whether it is arm’s length or intra-firm – is generally not available. Moreover, it is impossibleto observe the counterfactual arm’s length prices of an intra-firm transaction (see Diewertet al. 2006, for details). Since the arm’s length price is not observed, tax authorities have tofix the market price, which raises obvious definitional and methodological issues.

In this paper, we overcome both difficulties. We observe the export prices under eachmode (arm’s length or intra-firm) at the level of firms, countries, and products. Our econo-metric methodology moreover allows us to compare the intra-firm price with its correspondingarm’s length price. We show that the bulk of tax avoidance comes from a few large firmsthrough exports to a relatively limited number of "tax havens", where the baseline estimatesfind that intra-firm prices are on average 11% lower than arm’s length prices.3 This suggeststhat, by targeting enforcement efforts, tax authorities may be able to mitigate transfer pric-ing and raise tax revenues, while keeping enforcement costs low. The granular dimensionof tax avoidance should facilitate the implementation of such global enforcement as the oneproposed by Zucman (2014).

In order to frame our empirics, we first develop a theoretical model on the determinantsof arm’s length and intra-firm prices. The model goes beyond the traditional theoreticalliterature as it takes both tax-induced transfer pricing and pricing-to-market strategies intoaccount. The latter has been receiving increasing attention in the field of international trade.4

1See Fuest et al. (2003) for a survey on the impact of taxation on real MNE activity.2An OECD survey of tax authorities reaches the conclusion that "tax administrations see transfer pricing

as one of the most significant tax risks they have to manage” (OECD 2012, p.15). Gresik (2001) provides asurvey with an emphasis on the transfer pricing literature. A recent meta-analysis by Heckemeyer & Overesch(2013) shows that transfer pricing and licensing are two important means of shifting profits abroad. Recenttheoretical contributions on tax-induced transfer pricing include Behrens et al. (2009), Bernard et al. (2006),and Keuschnigg & Devereux (2013) which provides a recent model of non-tax-induced transfer pricing, onemotivated instead by manipulating managerial incentives. Diewert et al. (2006) gives an overview of thedifferent rationales for manipulating internal prices.

3About 25 firms accounts for 50% of intra-firm trade with the tax havens in our sample.4Examples include Bastos & Silva (2010), Manova & Zhang (2012), and Martin (2012).

1

The model shows that an exporting MNE finds it optimal to deviate from the arm’s lengthprices when it exports to countries with a different level of taxes than its home country. Thewedge between the intra-firm price and the arm’s length price is a decreasing function of thehost tax. We also show that arm’s length and intra-firm prices are likely to have a differentsensitivity to transport costs, tariffs, and GDP per capita, i.e. variables governing pricingto market. This result suggests that one should be mindful of this difference in sensitivityin the empirical analysis. If one of these variables is significantly correlated with the level ofcorporate tax rates (something which is true in our data), not allowing coefficients to differacross pricing modes would bias the estimated coefficients.

On the empirical side, we rely on a unique dataset that has detailed information on theintra-firm and arm’s length quantities and prices of exported products at the firm-level foralmost all French firms exporting in 1999. France is a useful country for this exercise as itexempts foreign income from taxation. Compared with the U.S. and other countries whereforeign tax credits and deferral complicate a firm’s tax planning problem, the relativelystreamlined French system provides a cleaner mapping between tax differences and firmincentives.5 Our identification strategy makes use of a set of triadic fixed effects at the levelof the firm, product and mode of transaction to control for unobservable determinants ofprices specific to firms, products and mode (such as firm productivity). The use of triadicfixed effects allows us to study the gap between arm’s length prices and intra-firm priceswhich are driven by the characteristics of the destination country. More specifically, weinteract an intra-firm trade dummy with a measure of destination countries’ corporate taxesto examine whether differences in intra-firm and arm’s length prices can be accounted for bythe tax differentials across countries. In addition, we control for several pricing-to-marketvariables identified as important in the trade literature (income, distance, and tariffs) andallow the sensitivity to these variables to differ across modes.

In line with the main theoretical prediction, our estimates suggest that export prices dropwith the destination corporate tax rate only for intra-firm transactions. This result is robustonce we control for pricing to market. We then show that the effect of taxes is non-linear.Transfer pricing is essentially directed to countries with very low tax rates. Interestingly,low taxes are not the entire story. The bulk of tax avoidance is attributable to the transferpricing of exports to tax havens. Tax havens not only have low corporate tax rates, butthey also provide an overall tax environment that seems to facilitate profit shifting throughtransfer pricing.6 For the ten tax havens in our sample, these additional factors may welldiffer from one to the other. For example, Ireland and Luxembourg came under fire fromthe European Commission in 2014 for offering firm-specific tax advantages which amountedto state support. In addition, in our sample, Ireland’s "double Irish" system, which allowsfirms to be incorporated but not tax residents was in full effect (a policy which is due tobe phased out beginning in 2015). Switzerland, meanwhile, is well known for its reticenceto provide information to other tax authorities, a factor which may aid in tax avoidance.

5Bernard et al. (2006) provide a detailed discussion of the complexity of the U.S. tax system.6Gumpert et al. (2011) provide a discussion of this in the context of an exemption-granting country like

France.

2

Cyprus had a similar policy up to 2013, when, as part of the bailout it received during thefinancial crisis, it reversed its policy. Thus, while the phrase "tax haven" is burdened by anegative connotation implying secrecy and lax policy enforcement, we use it with a broadermeaning covering a variety of firm-friendly tax policies. Extending our investigation findsthat profit shifting through transfer pricing is primarily done by large multinational firms.

A simple exercise suggests that the tax losses driven by the profit shifting of multinationalfirms to the ten tax havens in our sample amounts to about 1% of total corporate tax revenuesin France. We further show that 450 MNEs account for over 90% of intra-firm exports tothese ten tax havens, implying that a large share of transfer pricing may be curbed byfocusing enforcement on a small number of firms.

Although there is a large literature on the impact of international tax differences on thelocation of profits and firms, the results of which are suggestive of transfer pricing, thereis very little evidence of the impact of taxes on transfer prices themselves.7 Bartelsman& Beetsma (2003) use aggregated data on value added across manufacturing sectors in theOECD. They estimate a value added function depending on corporate tax rates and otherfactors, finding results suggestive of profit shifting via transfer pricing. Clausing (2003) usesprice indices for U.S. exports and imports which include separate indices for intra- and extra-firm prices, finding a strong and significant impact of taxes consistent with transfer pricing.Using an approximation of intra-firm trade from firm-level balance sheet data, Overesch(2006) finds that the value of German MNEs’ intra-firm trade varies with the differencebetween the German tax rate and that of the foreign parent/affiliate’s location. However,his analysis does not compare the price to an arm’s length price. As the arm’s length pricemay also vary with the overseas tax, his result could be due to pricing to market insteadof transfer pricing.8 Two interesting papers, Vicard (2014) and Cristea & Nguyen (2014),exploit the panel dimension of firm-level data on French and Danish firms respectively. Bothpapers tend to provide evidence of transfer pricing. However, they do not observe intra-firmand arm’s length prices, but assume intra-firm prices for transactions with countries wherea related party is located. As mentioned by Ramondo et al. (2011) and Atalay et al. (2014),most firms with an affiliate in a country do not trade with this affiliate. Furthermore, a firmthat exports a product to its affiliates might also well export another product to a thirdfirm in the same country. In our sample of firm-country pairs where we observe positiveintra-firm trade, the share of intra-firm trade in a firms’ total trade is below 40% for onefourth of observations. Our empirical tests rely on precise firm-level data on intra-firm andarm’s length prices.

Finally, our paper is related to the work of Bernard et al. (2006) who examine howinternal prices depend on taxes and tariffs using U.S. firm-level data. Similarly to the papersmentioned above and to our own results, their estimates are consistent with transfer pricing.We depart from this paper along three dimensions. First, and most importantly, we consider

7For a recent discussion of the former, see Huizinga & Laeven (2008). Dharmapala & Riedel (2013)discuss the impact of taxes on firm financing.

8Using firm-product level data, Swenson (2001) finds that prices react to taxes and tariffs, however, sheis unable to distinguish between intra-firm and arm’s length transactions and thus, again, it is not clearwhether this is linked to transfer pricing or pricing to market.

3

the tax haven status as well as tax rates. Since our estimates indicate that internal and arm’slength prices deviate most when the destination is a tax haven, this is critical. Second, weexamine whether all multinational firms are likely to use transfer pricing to shift profitsabroad.9 Our findings indicate that the intensity of profit shifting is systematically greaterfor larger firms. Lastly, our methodology is different: we use French rather than U.S. data,we run price regressions including firm-product-mode fixed effects rather than working withprice gaps, and we allow intra-firm and arm’s length prices to differ for other reasons thanfiscal motives. By using French rather than U.S. data, we avoid the complications in taxationintroduced by the U.S. foreign tax credit system. The price regression with individual fixedeffects offers a flexible framework to measure whether intra-firm and arm’s length pricesdiffer. Finally, accounting for differences in pricing to market between pure exporters andintra-firm exporters is consistent with the theory, and not doing so may bias the results.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present the theoreticalmodel and its predictions for the empirical analysis. In Section 3, we carefully presentthe data and the estimation sample construction. In Section 4, we present the baselineestimation, extend the results, and provide a quantification exercise estimating the revenueloss for France due to transfer pricing. We conclude in Section 5.

2 ModelWe present a simple model that illustrates how taxes and other factors, such as trade costsor market size, influence the pricing strategies of a firm. The firm produces an intermediategood in its home country at a constant marginal cost c and sells it to its overseas affiliateat a free-on-board price pHMNE. For sake of simplicity, we assume the domestic and foreignsales to be separable.10 We assume that exports incur an ad-valorem cost τvpHMNE such astariff or insurance and a specific cost τf , such as the cost of shipping.11 These trade costsare specific to the destination market. We assume the production of the final good to becostless. The foreign consumer price is denotes pFMNE.

For the determination of the price for the intermediate, we use the popular "concealmentcost" approach to modeling transfer pricing.12,13 In this, the transfer price pHMNE can differfrom the price, pH that would be set by a firm selling to an unaffiliated party, but this incurs

9Bernard et al. (2006) show that the price wedge between intra-firm and arm’s length transactions dependson the size of exporters and the differentiation of products. However, they do not study whether thesensitivity of the price wedge to corporate taxes depends on these characteristics.

10The final good is not imported back to the domestic country.11See for instance Goldberg & Campa (2010) or Berman et al. (2012).12This approach was initiated by Kant (1988) and forms the predominate method of modeling transfer

pricing in theory (eg. Haufler & Schjelderup 2000) and the empirics (eg. Huizinga & Laeven 2008).13Ernst & Young (2012) suggest that prices is one of the issues which receive "the greatest scrutiny” while

volumes are not mentioned (p63). However, one can show that our results hold if the tax authority putsenough weight on price deviations relative to the volume that is exported. Specifically, if one assumes thatthe concealment cost function is ϕ

[(pHMNE − pH

)d[pFMNE

]α] + F with α ≥ 0 and ϕ(z) = z2, our resultshold if and only if α < 1/2.

4

a cost Φ(pHMNE − pH

)where Φ is defined as follows:

Φ(x) :={ϕ(x) + F if x 6= 0

0 if x = 0

where ϕ(.) is the variable component of this cost which is continuously differentiable, convex,and such that ϕ(0) = ϕ′(0) = 0 with ϕ′(x) > 0. Last, we assume that ϕ(.) is an evenfunction ϕ(x) = ϕ(−x) ∀x ∈ R so that the concealment cost depends upon the price gaponly. This concealment cost is generally interpreted in transfer pricing models as the costto hire accountants to "cook the books” and/or as the fines that the firm would pay if it iscaught. We allow these costs to entails a fixed cost F and a variable cost ϕ(.) which increasesmarginally with the price wedge. Note that this might vary across countries; for example,if a tax haven makes this concealment relatively easy, then this could reduce the total andmarginal cost for a given x. The arm’s length price is taken as given by the firm and Φ is thetax-deductible cost that occurs in the home country. As an alternative, we could derive thisfunction along the lines of Becker & Davies (2014) where, rather than illicit tax avoidance,firms choose their transfer pricing methodologies from a range of legal alternatives. As theyshow, even when firms are audited with certainty, rendering concealment pointless, theirability to affect government-approved transfer pricing via the choice of methodology resultsin similar predictions regarding transfer pricing and taxes. However, given the complexityof that model relative to our aims, we maintain the current approach due to its relativetransparency.

Both countries levy taxes on a territorial basis, where the home tax is TH and the foreigntax is T F . This is consistent with the tax-exemption rule for the income earned abroad byFrench MNEs.

This results in profits given by:

πMNE =(1− TH

) ((pHMNE − c

)d[pFMNE

]− Φ

[pHMNE − pH∗

])(1)

+ (1− T F )(pFMNE −

((1 + τv) pHMNE + τf

))d[pFMNE

]The price pH∗, is the arm’s length price of a firm selling the product to a third party. To

back out this price, one needs to observe two firms with identical characteristics that servethe same market with different modes (eg. the mode is randomly assigned to each firm).We cannot observe this counterfactual in the data. This simple model takes into accountthat the arm’s length price is itself a function of market characteristics. This means thatour definition of transfer pricing disentangles variations in market power across countries(through variations in pH∗) from variations in transfer pricing pHMNE − pH∗.

Profits are maximized by choosing the transfer price pHMNE and the price of the final goodpFMNE. Assuming that F = 0 and defining the relative effective tax on foreign-earned profitsby tF = TF−TH

1−TH , the maximization of (2) results in a first order condition for the transfer

5

price of (1−

(1− tF

)(1 + τv)

)d[pFMNE

]= ϕ′

[pHMNE − pH∗

](2)

where the second-order condition in pHMNE is implied by the convexity of ϕ for any pricespH∗ and pFMNE. Since, ϕ() is even, we have that ϕ′(x) = −ϕ′(−x) ∀x ∈ R. Using thatϕ′(0) = 0, the above equation implies that the direction of profit shifting is determined bythe sign of the left-hand side. Assuming that T ≡

(1− tF

)(1 + τv) > 1 implies that a firm

sets pH∗MNE < pH∗ in order to shift profits to the foreign country. This happens wheneverthe corporate tax abroad is lower than at home (tF < 0). This is a standard result in thetransfer pricing literature. We shall stress that the multiplicative trade costs (e.g. tariffs)are also a motive for transfer pricing and that the two effects interact with one another. Wesummarize this result in the following proposition:

Proposition 2.1. The level of corporate taxes and multiplicative trade costs determine thedirection of the deviation of intra-firm prices from arm’s length prices. Free-on-board intra-firm prices are lower than arm’s length prices in destinations with lower corporate taxes orhigh tariffs.

Equation (2) shows that the price gap is also positively correlated with the volumed[pFMNE

]that is exported. This occurs because, although a non-zero price wedge increases

per-unit after-tax profits the marginal concealment cost is independent of quantity. Thedeviation from the arm’s length price is increasing in firm size, presuming that consistentwith the data that larger firms export more. The first order condition in equation (2) holdsfor any value of c. Therefore, the transfer pricing strategies of multinationals with differentmarginal costs differ if they ship different volumes d

[pFMNE

].

Proposition 2.2. Large volumes of intra-firm trade come with large deviations of intra-firmprices with respect to arm’s length prices.

Remark 1 (inaction band): The above propositions show that a multinational firmfinds it optimal to shift profits abroad when F = 0 and taxes differ even marginally. Thefixed component in the concealment cost function however, implies that there is an inactionband. In other words, we should not expect firms to shift profits abroad when the corporatetax (tariff) differential is small.

Note that (2) does not necessarily imply that the magnitude of transfer pricing increasesin the tax differential. To see this, consider the first order condition for the final good’sprice:

(pHMNE − c+ (1− tF )

(pFMNE − ((1 + τv)pHMNE + τf )

))d′[pFMNE

]+ (1− tF )d

[pFMNE

]= 0(3)

We assume, as is standard, that the demand is not "too convex" to guarantee that thesecond-order condition holds. Rearranging equation (3) leads to the following system of

6

equations which define pH∗MNE and pF∗MNE:

(1− T ) d[pF∗MNE

]= ϕ′

[pH∗MNE − pH∗

](4)

pF∗MNE = 11− E−1[pF∗MNE]

[(T − 1) pH∗MNE + c

1− tF + τf

]where E [z] = −d

′[z]zd[z] (5)

Now, let us assume that tF < 0 and τv = 0. We find T = 1 − tF > 1 which implies, byproposition 1, that pH∗MNE < pH∗. In this simple example, we see that a change in tF has twoopposing effects on internal prices. First, equation (4) shows that a decrease in tF leads to adecrease in pH∗MNE keeping pF∗MNE constant, i.e. more transfer pricing. This change is largerwhen the output is large and the penalty function is not "too convex”. However, equation (5)shows that, as the drop in the foreign tax lowers after-tax costs, the firm will adjust pF∗MNE,and hence the output, when changing pH∗MNE. The magnitude of this adjustment dependscrucially on the demand price-elasticity E [pF∗MNE] and on how much the firm passes onto itsfinal price changes in its free-on-board price.

There is therefore no reason to expect that a decrease in tF (and thus an increase in T )impacts monotonically the price gap. It is standard however to dismiss the output adjust-ment (see Cristea & Nguyen (2014) for a detailed discussion and simulations under iso-elasticdemand). Equation (5) offers an additional rationale to this assumption if we assume thatdEdz> 0. This restriction is verified if demand is more elastic at high prices which is both

intuitive and a commonly used assumption in models of monopolistic competition with vari-able mark-ups. In this event, a relative change in the free-on-board price leads to a smallerrelative change in the final price and thereby a lower change in output. We thus find itreasonable to expect that, as is commonly assumed in the transfer pricing literature, theprice gap increases in T . While a within-market comparison of the price gap between multi-nationals and arm’s length exporters would not be evidence of transfer pricing, the theorysuggests to identify transfer pricing by comparing the price-gap across different markets.

We now turn to the importance of market characteristics. Although the firm takes thearm’s length price pH as given, this too is determined as a function of local characteristicssince, as is well established, the free-on-board price of exports will vary with destinationspecifics. Thus, in order to accurately compare the differences between intra- and extra-firmprices and how they vary with destination characteristics, it is necessary to consider therelative responses of pHMNE and pH . We show below that even under the commonly usedassumption of CES preferences, market characteristics may impact differently pHMNE andpH .

The profits of a pure exporter, which both produces the intermediate and converts it intothe final good at home, can be written as:

maxpH

π =(pH − c

)d[(1 + τv)pH + τf

](6)

where the final consumer pays the cost-including-freight price (1 + τv) pH + τf . With

7

iso-elastic demand, the demand curve can be written as:

d[(1 + τv)pH + τf

]= A

((1 + τv)pH + τf

)−η(7)

where A is a demand shifter which depends on the market structure and η is the constantprice-elasticity of demand.14

The in order to maximize profits, the exporter sets a free-on-board price equal to:

pH∗ = η

η − 1

(c+ τf

η(1 + τv)

)(8)

which is increasing in trade costs whenever τf > 0. Since transport costs increase withdistance, fob prices are expected to increase with distance as found by Bastos & Silva (2010),Manova & Zhang (2012), Martin (2012). Since distribution costs are an increasing function offoreign wages, we expect fob prices to increase with GDP per capita as found by Simonovska(2010). Thus, exporters price to market, resulting in an arm’s length price that varies bydestination. Note, however, that as all revenues and costs are incurred at home, this priceis independent of taxes.

Returning to the MNE’s first order conditions, with iso-elastic demand, (4) and (5)become:

(1− T )A(pF∗MNE

)−η= ϕ′

[pH∗MNE −

η

η − 1

(c+ τf

η(1 + τv)

)](9)

pF∗MNE = η

η − 1

[(T − 1) pH∗MNE + c

1− tF + τf

](10)

which determine both pH∗MNE and pF∗MNE implicitely as functions of τf . Clearly, the elas-ticity of pH∗MNE with respect to τf is generally different from the elasticity of pH∗ and withoutmore structure on the model, one can not infer whether the price gap is magnified or reducedwhen, let’s say, distance or GDP per capita increases.

Remark 2: The sensitivity of arm’s length and intra-firm prices with respect to distanceand GDP per capita generally differs.

Thus, the size of the price wedge will vary according to destinations. Failure to accountfor this can potentially result in misleading estimates of the impact of taxes on the differencebetween intra-and extra-firm prices.

This theoretic exercise yields a set of predictions for us to take to the data. First, a higherdestination tax should lower the intra-firm price but have no effect on arm’s length prices.Second, prices should be an increasing function of specific trade costs (such as distance)and destination income but a declining function of ad valorem trade costs (such as tariffs).Finally, there should in general be differences in the impacts of these three variables on arm’s

14In a CES model of monopolistic competition, this constant is yP1−η where y stands for income, P is a

price-index of all varieties supplied in the market and η can be interpreted as the elasticity of substitutionbetween varieties.

8

length prices and transfer prices. In the next section, we describe the data and methodologyused to test these predictions.

3 Data and identification strategy

3.1 Data descriptionTo investigate the factors driving transfer pricing, we use detailed information on intra-firmand arm’s length export prices for a set of French firms in 1999. In order to construct ourestimation sample, using a unique firm identifier, we combined three datasets that havedetailed information on firm-level exports values and quantities of 8-digit product categoriesby destination, data on MNE status, and information on whether a transaction is intra-firmor arm’s length. We merge these datasets with information on country-level characteristicssuch as the level of corporate tax rate, distance, tariff or per-capita income.

Firm-level data. Our first dataset comes from the French Customs which reports thefree-on-board values and quantities of exports by firm, 8-digit CN product category, anddestination. We combine the value and quantity of export for firm, product CN8, anddestination triad to construct the destination- and firm-specific free-on-board unit values –our proxy for the price a firm charges for that good in a given market.

This dataset, however, does not provide information on the mode of exports, that is,whether a transaction is intra-firm or at arm’s length. We obtain this information from aconfidential 1999 survey of MNEs in France (both French and foreign-owned) which comesfrom the INSEE.15 The survey was addressed to all such MNEs with trade worth more than 1million Euro and covers firms providing 87% of the French total industrial product exports.16

The INSEE survey provides a detailed geographical breakdown of French MNEs’ exportvalues and quantities at product level (HS4) and their exporting modes – through outsidesuppliers and/or related parties. Using a CN8-HS4 correspondence table, we match each8-digit product category to their corresponding HS4 category. When the INSEE indicatesthat an HS4 category has a share of intra-firm exports exceeding 98%, we classify all thecorresponding CN8 exports by MNEs to be intra-firm transactions.17 If the share is zero,we classify the CN8 codes as arm’s length. When the share is positive but below 98%, wedrop this firm’s observations within this destination-HS4 dyad, observations which amountto roughly 12.6% of French exports. We assume for non-MNEs that all exports are done atarm’s length and are done through unrelated parties.

Finally, we use information from LIFI, a French-firm level dataset on financial linkagesbetween firms. This is used to determine whether a firm in the French customs data is aMNE and, if so, its nationality and the country locations of their related parties. As thisidentifies some firms in the French customs data as MNEs but for which we do not have the

15Échanges internationaux intra-groupe.16www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/IP936.pdf, INSEE WP 936, Table 1.17Changing this threshold does not change the qualitative results of our empirical analysis.

9

INSEE data, we drop those observations as we cannot know whether the transaction is intra-firm or arm-length.18 We also eliminate the observations of state-owned firms as these firmsmight have a different price setting mechanism.19 LIFI is also interesting because it providesthe countries in which the affiliates of firms located in France are themselves located.

This then leaves us with information at the firm, NC8 product, country, and exportingmode level. Once merged with country characteristics, there are 735,064 observations inour unbalanced baseline sample.20 Our cross section is composed by 67,312 firms, 5,482products and 45 countries. About 9.2% of the total number of observations are intra-firmprices. It is worth emphasizing that most of the prices set by MNEs are not intra-firmprices. In this sample, only 15.6% of the prices set by MNEs are intra-firm prices. Anotherinteresting fact is that, in our data, one third of multinational firms do not report intra-firmtrade in countries where they have affiliates (or a headquarter) according to LIFI. A lastfact pertains to the likelihood that we observe both arm’s length and intra-firm trade fora multinational firm exporting to a given country. To study this point, we restrict to thesample of firm-destination pairs that feature intra-firm exports. Since firms make part oftheir export to these countries intra-firm, we can be certain that the firm has a related partyin the destination country. Among these pairs there are firms selling all their exports intra-firm while other firms may export to the country through the two modes. In this sample,the median share of intra-firm trade is 98%. This means that conditional on exporting intra-firm to a country, the median firms export almost entirely intra-firm. This figure, however,hides large variation. In particular, we find that for one fourth of product-country pairs, theshare of intra-firm trade is at most 40%. Said differently, even if a firm exports intra-firmto a country, in 25% of cases, the share of intra-firm exports to the country is below 40%.These facts confirm the usefulness of having information on intra-firm and arm’s lengthtransactions. They also show the caveats of databases that only report information on thepresence of related parties in the destination country.

Tax and Tax havens data. In our model, the equilibrium is where the marginal savingsfrom reducing tariff and tax payments equals the marginal cost of transfer pricing. Thus,the most appropriate tax measure is the effective marginal tax rate (EMTR) on income asthis represents the tax savings from shifting one Euro of income. If taxes are flat, then theEMTR equals the effective average tax rate (EATR). However, if taxes are progressive (as istypically the case), then the EATR will understate the tax savings from transfer pricing. Inour baseline results, we use the EMTR from Loretz (2008). In robustness checks, we insteaduse the EATR and the top statutory corporate tax rate (both from Loretz (2008)) and findqualitatively identical results. In the baseline estimation, we used the EMTR reported in

18We lose 605 firms amounting to dropping 2.5% of the value of French exports.19They account for about 1.7% of French exports.20We lose information on about 10% of the French export value when merging the dataset with the tax

rates data. We also lose an additional 2.3% of the export value when merging the data with info on tariffs.The tariffs data are not available for 20 countries of the original sample of 65 countries. Reproducing theestimations without the tariffs variable leads to qualitatively similar results.

10

1998 or 1997 (whichever is closer) when the data for 1999 were missing.21 An importantaspect of these tax rate measures is that they are constructed from statutory tax policies,but unlike the headline tax rate, accounts for factors such as the tax offsets from capitalexpenditures (see Loretz (2008) for details). As such, EMRT or EATR are exogenous tofirm decisions, something which would not be the case if we used firm accounting data toconstruct firm-specific taxes.

As seen in table 5 in the appendix, the effective average and marginal tax rates varyconsiderably across countries. In our estimation sample, the EMTR ranges from 0% in Ba-hamas to about 46% in the Russian Federation. Of large concern in policy circles is theuse of investment in tax havens in aggressive tax planning. This is particularly the casefor countries such as France or Germany that exempt foreign income from taxation.22 Wetherefore use additional information on tax havens. Our definition follows Hines & Rice(1994) which has been recently used by Dharmapala & Hines (2009). A tax haven is as alocation with low corporate tax rates, banking and business secrecy, advance communicationfacilities and self-promotion as an offshore financial center ((Hines & Rice 1994), Appendix1 p. 175). Compared to the list of Tax Havens produced by the OECD (2000), the approachof Dharmapala & Hines (2009) identifies a number of additional tax havens such as Switzer-land. In our estimation sample, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, HongKong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Singapore and Switzerland are classified as tax havens.Approximately 41% of firms export to these countries and these exports account for roughly11% of the total number of observations.

Pricing to market data. As discussed above, firms adjust their prices to the characteris-tics of the destination market. The empirical literature has identified two main regularitieson firms’ pricing to market behavior, namely, firms charge higher prices when the destinationif further away and when the destination is wealthier (eg. Bastos & Silva 2010, Manova &Zhang 2012, Martin 2012). Berman et al. (2012) have shown that small and large firms mayreact differently to trade costs depending on their size and productivity. In our model, weshow that these factors may impact intra-firm prices differently from arm’s length prices.Furthermore, as these market characteristics are correlated to the level of corporate tax rate,it is crucial to control for them. We therefore use data on per capita GDP (measured in USdollars) from the Internal Financial Statistics of the IMF to control for the level of countryspecific income. As measures of trade costs, we use the bilateral distance variable (whichis the population weighted average distance between countries’ main cities in kilometers)which is taken from CEPII database (Mayer & Zignago 2006) and also use information fromTRAINS on tariffs faced by French exporters developed by the WITS (UNCTAD). In ourdata, distance and per capita GDP are both significantly and negatively correlated withboth the effective tax rates and tax haven status, suggesting that their omission could bias

21Notice that the 37 of 45 countries in our sample share a Bilateral Tax Treaty with France. Controllingfor the existence of treaties (and interacting with the intra-firm dummy) does not change the results andindeed, we find little impact of tax treaties on transfer pricing.

22See the recent paper by Gumpert et al. (2011), who considers this issue for a large sample of GermanMNEs.

11

our results.

3.2 Identification strategyTesting the main propositions of our model requires estimating the effect of the tax variables,the EMTR and/or tax haven, on the differential between the intra-firm price of a specificproduct in a country and its corresponding arm’s length price. Our empirical model includesa set of triadic fixed effects at the level of firm, product and export mode. The use of triadicfixed effects allows us to compare the gap between the arm’s length price and the intra-firmprice across countries. These fixed effects also account for a wide set of attributes of thetransactions at the level of the firm, product, and exporting mode that might also accountfor the levels of the price differential (Bernard et al. 2006). In our empirical estimation, wemake use of an interaction term between the tax variables and an indicator of the export-ing mode that is equal to 1 if the transaction is intra-firm and 0 if it is at arm’s length.Given the set of controls that we discuss below, the estimated interaction coefficients givean indication of the price differential that is due to transfer pricing.23 As we shall show lateron, we use destination fixed effects in some specifications to control for destination-specificheterogeneity.

The empirical strategy involves estimating the following model:

pfpmc = α1Intrafpmc + α2Taxc + α3Taxc × Intrafpmc (11)+ α4TaxHavenc + α5TaxHavenc × Intrafpmc+ γ1Xc + γ2Xc × Intrafpmc + µfpm + εfpmc

where pfpmc is the export price charged by firm f for product p in country c under the exportmode m. Tax is a variable that captures the level of tax in the destination country. Ourprimary measure is based on the EMTR, defined as Taxc = log(1 − τc), with τc being theEMTR in country c.24 Our second measure, TaxHavenc, is a dummy variable that takes thevalue of one if the country is on the tax haven list of Hines & Rice (1994). These are bothalso interacted with Intrafpmc, a dummy variable that takes the value of one if the exportmode is intra-firm and zero otherwise. Since we expect the price wedge to be increasing inthe amount of profits retained by the firm (i.e. Taxc = log(1− τc) is larger or the country isa tax haven), we anticipate both of these interactions to be negative (i.e. a larger absolutevalue difference between the intra-firm and arm’s length prices).

The term µfpm is a comprehensive set of firm-product-mode fixed effects. Notice that it isno longer possible to estimate the direct effect of the export mode because of the triadic fixedeffects. Xc is a vector of country specific variables that includes the logarithm of distance,tariffs, and the logarithm of GDP per capita. We interact these variables with the intra-firmtransaction dummy as the pricing behavior of firms is also affected by bilateral trade costs

23Our identification strategy implies that the deviation from the arm’s length price in itself is not evidenceof transfer pricing. It is an evidence when the gap between the arm’s length price and the intra-firm priceis significantly related to the tax differential across countries.

24We also use the EATR variable as an alternative definition of the tax rate.

12

and income in the destination market and might also vary across the export modes. As theprices might also be influenced by the market structure and the intensity of competitionin the foreign market, and since these characteristics are unobservable, we introduce a setof country fixed effects in some specifications. Finally, εfpmc is the disturbance term. Thestandard errors are allowed to be adjusted for clustering at the country-level to account forheteroskedasticity and non-independence across the repeated observations within countries.

Table 1 gives the summary statistics.

Table 1: Summary statistics

Variable Nature Mean Std. Dev.pfpmc (log) 3.09 1.799Intrafpmc 0/1 0.092 0.288(1− τc) (EMTR) (log) -0.353 0.095(1− τc) (EATR) (log) -0.383 0.091Tax Havenc 0/1 0.107 0.308Tariffc Continuous 0.270 0.739Distancec (log) 6.986 0.865Per Capita GDPc (log) 9.976 0.569

Intrafpmc×:(1− τc) (EMTR) -0.032 0.105(1− τc) (EATR) -0.035 0.113TaxHavenc 0.007 0.083Tariffc 0.030 0.262Distancec 0.653 2.073Per Capita GDPc 0.905 2.857

Observations 735,064

4 ResultsBaseline Results. According to the theoretical predictions the average internal priceshould be lower than the arm’s length price in a country with lower marginal effective taxrates. The estimates are reported in Table 2. Overall, the specifications explain from about87% of the variation of the log level of export prices as suggested by the adjusted R2. Theestimates using the EATR variable are reported in Table 6 in the Appendix.

In column (1), we do not find a statistically significant effect of the effective marginaltax rate on the level of arm’s length prices. We do, however, find a negative and significantinteraction coefficient between the corporate tax and the intra-firm dummy, i.e. internalexport prices are relatively lower than arm’s length prices in destinations with lower corporatetax rate. A ten percent decrease in the effective average tax rate leads to a reduction of intra-firm prices by 1.9% (2.2% using the EATR variable).

13

Table 2: Baseline regression Effective Marginal Tax Rate, All firms

Dependent variables: Export price(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(1− τc) 0.10 0.12 -0.01 -0.03(0.755) (0.870) (-0.137) (-0.367)

−× Intrafpmc -0.19∗∗ -0.20∗ -0.10 -0.05 -0.08(-2.109) (-1.932) (-1.451) (-1.056) (-1.205)

TaxHavenc 0.11 0.12(1.574) (1.555)

−× Intrafpmc -0.11∗∗ -0.09∗∗ -0.09∗∗∗(-2.686) (-2.365) (-2.843)

Per Capita GDPc 0.06∗∗ 0.04 0.04 0.04(2.128) (1.544) (1.487) (1.568)

−× Intrafpmc -0.03∗∗ -0.01 -0.01 -0.02∗ -0.00(-2.620) (-1.108) (-1.187) (-1.726) (-0.404)

Distancec 0.08∗∗∗ 0.08∗∗∗ 0.08∗∗∗ 0.11∗∗∗(2.919) (3.631) (3.652) (4.288)

−× Intrafpmc -0.04∗∗∗ -0.05∗∗∗ -0.05∗∗∗ -0.06∗∗∗ -0.05∗∗∗(-2.855) (-4.811) (-4.518) (-4.974) (-4.178)

Tariffc 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.01(1.052) (1.122) (1.158) (0.418)

−× Intrafpmc -0.03∗ -0.03∗∗ -0.03∗∗ -0.02 -0.03∗∗∗(-1.995) (-2.617) (-2.426) (-1.616) (-3.138)

Sample Full Full Full Full w.o Tax H. FullCountry FE No No No No No YesFirm-Prod.-Mode FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes YesObservations 756,332 735,064 735,064 735,064 657,117 735,064Adj. R2 0.862 0.865 0.865 0.865 0.870 0.866Note: This table investigates the impact of effective taxe rate, GDP per capita, distance, tariffs, and taxhaven dummy on intra-firm and arm-length export prices. Effective tax rates are transformed as follows:(log(1−τ)). We use the effective marginal tax rate here. All regressions include firm-product-exporting modefixed effects. The last column further includes country fixed effects. In column (5) we restrict the sampleto countries not classified as tax havens. Robust standard errors clustered by destination are computed.Corresponding t-statistics are reported in parentheses. Significance levels: ∗p < 0.1, ∗∗p < 0.05, and∗∗∗p < 0.01.

In column (2), we control for other country characteristics that might influence the pricingbehavior of the firm. Nevertheless, we continue to find comparable results, namely that taxesinfluence internal prices but not those between unrelated parties. If anything, the estimatedimpact is slightly larger, suggesting a slight bias when they are excluded. In line with the

14

prediction of our model, we find a positive impact of per-capita GDP on the level of prices. Aten percent increase in per capita GDP raises the export prices by 0.6%. We find however anegative and statistically significant interaction coefficient between the per capita GDP andthe intra-firm mode variables. This suggests a slightly lower impact of per-capita GDP oninternal prices which may make sense if internal trade includes a larger share of intermediategoods which are not directly sold to overseas customers. Turning to the trade costs variables,in line with the prediction of our model we find a positive effect of distance on export prices.A ten percent increase in distance raises the export prices by 0.8%. As an example, given thedistances between France and the countries in our sample, the export prices are on average0.8% higher in the Netherlands as compared to Belgium. The effect of distance on internalexport prices is lower. Concerning the tariff variable, the effect on arm’s length prices isnot significant. In other words, there is no evidence of dumping by French arm’s lengthexporters. This might be due to the low cross-country variation in the tariff variable as mostof the transactions are observed in countries that are member of the European Union.25

However, intra-firm prices are significantly smaller that arm’s length prices in high-tariffcountries, suggesting that firms choose to undervalue their exports to pay less tariffs.

In column (3), we replace our EMTR variable with a dummy variable equal to one ifthe destination is a tax haven. As tax havens not only have low taxes but often provideother mechanisms that facilitate profit shifting (such as the limited exchange of informationbetween tax authorities), one might expect that internal prices differ markedly in thesenations. The results are striking. The interaction between the tax haven dummy variableand its interaction with the intra-firm export mode is significant and estimated with a largedegree of precision. We do not find a significant effect of the tax haven dummy variable onthe arm’s length price. This result suggests that arm’s length export prices are the sameregardless of whether or not the destination is a tax haven. The interaction between thetax haven and the export mode dummy variables is significantly negative, indicating thatthe average internal export price for a tax haven is about 11% lower than the comparablearm’s length price. This suggests that the tax havens are playing a major role in the transferpricing strategies of firms.

This finding remains robust in column (4) as we include the effective marginal tax ratesand its interaction term with the export mode, where we find the intra-firm export prices tobe about 9% lower than arm’s length prices in tax haven destinations even when tax ratesdo not differ. Notice that the coefficient of the interaction term that involves the EMTR, issmaller and insignificant once we control for the tax havens. As tax havens tend to have lowtaxes, this suggests that the results in column (2) were biased due to failure to control fortax haven status. Further, it highlights the important difference between having low taxesand having other policies that make tax planning easier. Indeed, the OECD (2013)’s ActionPlan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting makes precisely such a distinction.26

25About 90% of the observation concerns a transaction toward an E.U. country.26The firms might also operate in tax havens and non-tax havens countries. We also drop the firms that

exports in tax havens internally. We don’t find a significant tax effect. This suggests that there is nosubstitution effects. The transfer pricing strategy is not used by firms that do not export to tax havens,while firms that exports to tax havens have lower prices in countries with lower tax rates.

15

In column (5), we investigate the importance of tax havens further by excluding themfrom the analysis. Compared to column (2), the coefficient of the interaction term thatinvolves the effective tax rate is about four times lower and becomes insignificant, againsuggesting that the bulk of the impacts in column (2) were coming from the tax havens.

Finally, column (6) includes a set of destination specific dummy variables. Introducingcountry fixed effects does not allow us to estimate the direct effect of the country specificvariables (including the tax rate and tax haven status). This, however, comes with the benefitof controlling for other destination characteristics. As can be seen, the tax rate interactionremains insignificant. Nevertheless, the tax haven interaction is virtually unchanged inmagnitude and becomes even more significant. Thus, even after including destination fixedeffects we find evidence of tax-induced transfer pricing which is most evident in tax havencountries.27

Non-linear tax effects. To this point, we have investigated the average effect of tax rateson the export price differential. We find evidence of transfer pricing, but only in tax havencountries which are characterized by with very low tax rates. Our results suggest thereforea non-linearity of the tax rates on the price differential. We examine this effect furtherby running a regression using, instead of the EMTR, a set of dummy variables indicatingthe decile in which a country’s EMTR falls. We choose the 9th decile as a benchmark.This decile is composed by 5 countries which have roughly the same effective marginal taxrate as France and where, in theory, internal and arm’s length prices should be the same.The first decile includes countries with the lowest effective marginal corporate tax rates.It includes Bahamas, Hong-Kong, Ireland, Slovenia, and South Africa.28 The 10th decileincludes Argentina, Germany, Japan, and Poland which are the countries with the highesteffective marginal corporate tax rates in our sample.

The estimated coefficients of these interaction terms are shown in Figure 1.29 Each dotcorresponds to the interaction coefficient between the effective average tax rate and theintra-firm export mode dummy variable. We also display the confidence intervals at the10% level. The estimated effects are quite heterogeneous. Along the first remark of thetheoretical model, we observe an inaction band when the tax differential is not too large.The point estimate of the interaction effect is however negative and significant only for thecountries in the first two deciles. This indicates that our results are very heavily driven bythe lowest tax countries, four of which are also classified as tax havens (Ireland, Switzerland,Honk-Kong and the Bahamas).

27We also investigate whether we find similar effects using firms that sell both arm’s length and intra-firmand those that do only intra-firm trade. The results are qualitatively similar. They are available uponrequest.

28The sample consists of 45 countries. For this reason, some deciles have 5 countries and others have 4countries.

29The estimated coefficients are obtained from a regression of export prices on the tax decile of thedestination country and its interaction with a dummy equal to one if the price is intra-firm. The regressionalso includes firm-product-exporting mode fixed effects, and distance, GDP per capita, and tariffs and theirinteraction with the intra-firm dummy.

16

Figure 1: Non-linear effect of corporate tax rate on transfer pricing

−.2

−.15

−.1

−.05

0

.05

Price g

ap intr

afirm

− a

rm’s

−le

ngth

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Tax decile

Note: This graph displays the price wedge between intra-firm and arm’s length prices bydecile of the destination country corporate tax rate. The price wedge is measured by thecoefficients on the interaction between tax deciles and an intra-firm dummy in a regressionof the logarithm of exports prices on firm-product-exporting mode fixed effects, tax decileof the destination country, GDP per capita, distance, and tariff, and their interaction witha dummy equal to one if the exports are between related parties. The first decile is thedecile of countries with the lowest corporate tax rates. The tenth decile is the decile withthe highest corporate tax rates. Decile 9 is normalized to zero (countries with the same levelof tax as France). The gray area corresponds to the confidence interval at 5%.

Additional results. A relevant concern that has been raised in the literature studyingthe effects of transfer pricing is the differing abilities of firms to engage in transfer pricing(Bernard, et al 2006). In our model, firms with greater size are expected to have larger pricedifferentials. In columns (1) and (2) of Table 3, we split the sample according to the size ofthe MNEs measured by their total exports.30 In the first column, we drop MNEs below the75th percentile of the distribution of multinationals firm size, and thus keep large MNEs andall pure exporters. In column (2), we drop observations of MNEs above the 25th percentile,retaining only small MNEs and all pure exporters. Looking at the corporate tax and the taxhaven interactions with the intra-firm trade dummy, we find significance for tax havens onlyfor the large firms. This indicates that the manipulation of internal prices for tax reasons isprimarily a phenomenon for large firms in tax havens. Further, we find that the relationshipbetween pricing to market and internal prices is more prevalent in large firms.

In columns (3) and (4), we analyze another source of heterogeneity by operating a dis-tinction across the nationality of ownership of a MNE. In column (3) we include MNEs that

30Note that as all the estimations in Table 3 include destination fixed effects, only the interaction termscan be estimated.

17

are French resident or owned at a majority by a French group (as well as all non-MNEs). Incolumn (4), we include MNEs that are majority owned by a foreign group and all exporters.Comparing the two, we find that the coefficients are estimated more precisely in the Frenchfirms’ sample. In particular, we find the effective marginal tax rate to have a strong, negativeand significant impact on the log level intra-firm export prices. A comparable effect is foundfor tax havens. These results therefore again suggest that tax havens are playing a majorrole in the transfer pricing strategies of French firms. In column (4), although the sign ofthe tax rate and tax haven variables match those in the French-only sample, the significanceof both is much lower with only the tax haven variable significant at the 5% level. This sug-gests that similar forces are at play for this sample as well, although there may be greaternoise introduced due to the variety of parent countries in this sample as compared to thatin column (3). In particular, if the MNEs from other countries face worldwide taxation (asdo the U.S. firms in Bernard et al. (2006)), this may illustrate the cleaner tax effects to befound by using data on FDI from a tax-exempting country.

18

Table3:

Add

ition

alresults

,Effe

ctiveMargina

lTax

Rate

Dep

ende

ntvaria

bles:Ex

port

price

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

Intrafpmc×:

(1−τ c

)-0.05

-0.13

-0.14∗

-0.03

-0.05

-0.09∗

-0.09

-0.07

(-0.91

2)(-1.24

0)(-1.72

4)(-0.53

2)(-0.57

3)(-1.88

0)(-1.56

3)(-1.08

7)TaxHaven

c-0.11∗∗∗

-0.01

-0.08∗∗∗

-0.11∗∗

-0.04

-0.08∗∗∗

-0.10∗∗∗

-0.10∗∗∗

(-7.59

7)(-0.17

1)(-3.30

7)(-2.32

6)(-0.72

6)(-3.78

8)(-3.87

7)(-2.71

5)PerCapitaGDPc

-0.01

-0.00

-0.02

0.02

-0.05

-0.01

-0.01

-0.01

(-0.63

2)(-0.06

1)(-1.47

4)(1.500

)(-1.41

0)(-1.17

5)(-1.14

7)(-0.54

2)Distancec

-0.05∗∗∗

-0.06∗∗∗

-0.07∗∗∗

-0.04∗∗∗

-0.01

-0.05∗∗∗

-0.05∗∗∗

-0.06∗∗∗

(-4.97

6)(-3.63

0)(-5.30

8)(-3.47

9)(-0.17

6)(-4.97

6)(-5.38

8)(-4.71

8)Tariff c

-0.03∗∗∗

-0.03

-0.05∗∗∗

-0.02∗

0.01

-0.04∗∗∗

-0.04∗∗∗

-0.03∗∗

(-4.15

8)(-1.29

4)(-3.49

7)(-1.77

6)(0.404

)(-3.96

7)(-3.68

6)(-2.53

7)Sa

mple

Big

Small

Fren

chFo

reign

Hom

og.

Diff.

w/o

firms

firms

firms

MNEs

good

sgo

ods

who

lesale

All

Firm

-Prod.-M

odeFE

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Cou

ntry

FEYe

sYe

sYe

sYe

sYe

sYe

sYe

sNo

Cty-Sect.

FENo

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Observatio

ns72

3,92

169

7,89

756

7,07

146

5,00

811

,980

608,53

555

3,74

574

2,86

3Adj.R

20.86

80.86

90.87

60.87

10.84

70.88

50.86

80.93

2N

ote:

Thistableinvestigates

theim

pact

ofeff

ectiv

etaxe

rate,GDP

percapita,distan

ce,tariff

s,an

dtax

havendu

mmyon

intra-firm

andarm-le

ngth

expo

rtprices.Allregressio

nsinclud

efirm-produ

ct-exp

ortin

gmod

efix

edeff

ects.

Colum

n(1)focuseson

MNEs

who

seexpo

rtsalesareab

ovetheP7

5.Colum

n(2)

focu

seson

MNEs

who

seexpo

rtsalesarebe

low

theP2

5.Colum

n(3)exclud

esaffi

liatesof

foreignMNEs

locatedin

Fran

ce.Colum

n(4)exclud

esFrench

MNEs

.Colum

n(5)contains

only

theprod

ucts

classifi

edas

homogen

eous

inRau

chno

men

clature.

Colum

n(6)contains

only

theprod

ucts

classifi

edas

diffe

rentiatedin

Rau

chno

men

clature.

Colum

n(7)e

xclude

sMNEs

who

semainactiv

ityab

road

iswho

lesale.Rob

usts

tand

ard

errors

clusteredby

destinationarecompu

ted.

Colum

n(8)d

isplays

theresults

with

Cou

ntry

andsector

fixed

effects.Correspon

ding

t-statist

icsarerepo

rted

inpa

renthe

ses.

Sign

ificanc

elevels:∗ p<

0.1,∗∗p<

0.05

,and

∗∗∗ p<

0.01.

19

In France, as in most countries, the tax authority’s expectation is that firms set the priceof their internal transactions according to the arm’s length principle.31 The main force atplay in the above model is that deviations from this price come at a cost. This cost includespenalties incurred if a firm were caught out. When the appropriate arm’s length price is easilydetermined, as is the case for homogeneous goods that are traded on organized exchange,transfer pricing should therefore be minimal. In contrast, differentiated products that areby definition specific to the relationship lack such comparable arm’s length transactions(Blonigen et al. 2014). Thus, MNEs that are exporting differentiated products might moreeasily reduce taxes via transfer pricing.32 In columns (5) and (6), we use the Rauch (1999)classification and document the effect of taxes and tax havens on both the homogenous andthe differentiated goods category. Goods that are exchanged on organized markets, i.e. whereappropriate prices are easily verified by tax authorities, show no differences between intra-and extra-firm transactions. Differentiated products, on the other hand, do show evidenceof such. Notice that the estimated coefficient reported in column (6) are in line with the onefound in the baseline estimation (Column (6) of Table 2).

In column (7), we show that our baseline result are robust to the exclusion of the ob-servations of firms active in the wholesale sectors as the pricing behavior of such firms maydiffer from that of others. As can be seen, the results are robust to their exclusion.

Last, we deal with the self-selection of firms into the multinational status. As emphasizedby Helpman et al. (2004), the selection of firms into multinationals depends upon a set offirm characteristics and on barriers to entry and other destination market characteristics suchas the level of competition. These characteristics may well be influenced by the corporatetax rate or the tax haven status of the destination market. Our specification allows forthe possibility that market characteristics vary across industries and across countries.33 Incolumn (8), we include country × HS1-industry fixed effects and show that our main resultsremain.

In table 7 of the appendix, we provide the estimates using the EATR variable. We findthat our results are robust to the use of this alternative definition of the corporate tax rate.

Back-of-the-envelope calculation. To quantify the loss for tax authorities due to trans-fer pricing, we use the estimates of the baseline estimation, column (4). In our quantificationexercise, we compute the loss of the exports due to lower pricing in tax havens. In 1999, theFrench effective corporate tax rate was 31.77 percent and brought in about 36 billion eurosof corporate tax receipts.34

In column (3) of Table 2, we find that intra-firm prices are 10.4% (exp(-0.11)-1) lower31This means applying prices that independent enterprises would set in identical transactions (B.O.I.

1999).32Bernard et al. (2006) find that the difference between intra- and extra-firm prices is larger for differenti-

ated goods than homogenous ones, however, they do not estimate how the effect of taxes impacts the pricewedge across groups.

33In our model, it means that the demand shifter A is country-product specific.34http://www.performance-publique.budget.gouv.fr/farandole/archives/1999/lftab99.htm. Taxes are

charged on the taxable income which consists of operational and financial profits minus charges.

20

Table 4: Under-reporting to tax havens

Country Sh. French Sh. exports Value not reportedexports intra-firm (million euros)

Switzerland 0.0407 0.58 590.0Ireland 0.0083 0.62 129.0Singapore 0.0072 0.58 105.0Hong Kong 0.0071 0.54 96.3Luxembourg 0.0056 0.37 51.3Malta 0.0019 0.88 42.3Cyprus 0.0007 0.53 9.9Bermuda 0.0003 0.85 5.9Bahamas 0.0002 0.51 2.8Cayman Islands 0.0001 0.55 0.7

than the market price in tax havens.35 Table 4 reports the share of exports and the share ofthese that were intra-firm for the ten tax havens. As can be seen, three of these countriesare important export destinations. Further, the shares of intra-firm exports to Switzerlandand Ireland are very high (around 60%). Using the intra-firm trade values in the data, thefinal column gives the value of under-priced intra-firm exports, the sum of which amountsto more than one billion euros. Without this under-reporting, French tax authorities wouldhave collected 340 million euros more. This figure can be compared to the 36 billion euroscollected in 1999 (which includes both services and manufacturing), meaning that total taxrevenues in that year would have been roughly 1% greater were it not for transfer pricingby manufacturing firms in these ten tax havens.36 Interestingly, only 2,495 firms makeintra-firm exports to these countries with a scant 450 firms accounting for 90% of intra-firmexports to these ten countries. More so, almost 50% of intra-firm exports to these tax havendestinations are done by 25 firms. This suggests that a small number of firms are avoiding alarge tax payment. This is an important factor to acknowledge as the OECD’s (2012) surveyof tax authorities finds that the cost of pursuing transfer pricing MNEs is of major concern.

Our results suggest that the lion share of transfer pricing practices in France is concen-trated in the exports to at most ten countries by about 7% of multinationals. Targetingexports by these firms to tax havens would make enforcement of the arm’s length priceprinciple more efficient.

5 ConclusionDespite the clear incentive firms have to shift profits through transfer pricing and thewidespread concern over its implications, direct and systematic evidence of this practice

35We consider all intra-firm exports not only the ones used in our estimates.36Note that this number does not consider any transfer pricing in the services sector for these countries.

21

remains scarce. This is due to a general lack of data on the prices used within a multina-tional and the prices for comparable arm’s length transactions. Thus, the importance oftransfer pricing practices in terms of monetary value and of number of firms and countriesinvolved remains largely unanswered.

We have built a unique dataset that overcomes this problem. These data contain prices atthe firm-product-destination level for both intra-firm and arm’s length exports. This level ofdata is important for three key reasons. First, it allows us to control for other determinantsof prices across firms, such as the relative productivity of multinationals as compared toexporters. Second, it allows us to control for the destination country’s characteristics, suchas income and trade costs, which are potentially correlated with tax variables yet impactintra-firm and arm’s length prices in different ways. Third, the richness of the data allowsus to consider not only the effect of foreign corporate taxes on pricing behavior, but also therole of tax havens and how this behavior varies with firm and product characteristics.

We find that internal prices are lower in destinations with lower tax rates and mostimportantly in tax havens. Furthermore, transfer pricing is primarily found within largeMNEs. These results are crucial for two reasons. First, they support the OECD’s (2013)assertion that there is a difference between low-tax countries and tax havens which providea tax environment particularly amenable to tax avoidance. Second, it shows that althoughtransfer pricing may result in significant revenue losses, such losses are primarily due to asmall number of firms. Given that our estimates are for 1999 alone, the cumulative taxlosses from such transfer pricing should be quite large. This implies that by appropriatelytargeting enforcement, a significant increase in revenues may be achieved at a small cost.Moreover, since our data is only for manufacturing, and not services, this tax loss is likelyjust the tip of the iceberg.

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25

Table5:

Cou

ntrie

s,EA

TR,E

MTR

andTa

xHavensin

1999

Cou

ntry

EATR

EMTR

Cou

ntry

EATR

EMTR

Cou

ntry

EATR

EMTR

Bah

amas∗∗

0.00

0.00

Bulga

ria0.24

0.27

Czech

Rep

ublic

0.30

0.31

Irelan

d∗∗

0.08

0.09

Norway

0.25

0.26

China

0.30

0.31

Hon

g-Kon

g∗∗

0.09

0.12

Great-B

ritain

0.25

0.26

Urugu

ay0.30

0.30

Sloven

ia0.12

0.18

Cyp

rus∗∗

0.25

0.25

Spain

0.31

0.32

South-Africa

0.15

0.21

Den

mark

0.25

0.28

New

-Zealand

0.31

0.31

Estonia

0.17

0.20

India

0.26

0.29

Brazil

0.31

0.32

Chile

0.17

0.16

Trinidad

andTo

bago

0.26

0.29

Can

ada

0.31

0.32

Turkey

0.17

0.23

Luxembo

urg∗∗

0.28

0.30

Australia

0.31

0.33

Switz

erland∗∗

0.18

0.21

Portug

al0.28

0.31

Colom

bia

0.32

0.33

Korea

0.20

0.24

Indo

nesia

0.29

0.29

Italy

0.33

0.35

Gua

temala

0.21

0.23

Greece

0.29

0.32

UnitedStates

ofAmerica

0.33

0.34

Swed

en0.21

0.23

Nethe

rland

s0.29

0.31

Poland

0.34

0.34

Mexico

0.22

0.26

Austria

0.29

0.31

Argentin

a0.35

0.35

Finlan

d0.22

0.24

Peru

0.29

0.29

Japa

n0.41

0.41

Ecua

dor

0.22

0.23

Belgium

0.29

0.33

German

y0.42

0.43

Not

e:∗∗

TaxHaven

sas

defin

edby

Hines

&Rice(1994).

26

Table 6: Baseline regression Effective Average Tax Rate, All firms

Dependent variables: Export price(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

(1− τc) 0.12 0.12 -0.02 -0.04(0.870) (0.847) (-0.211) (-0.419)

−× Intrafpmc -0.22∗∗ -0.22∗ -0.11 -0.06 -0.08(-2.277) (-1.994) (-1.590) (-1.248) (-1.253)

TaxHavenc 0.11 0.12(1.574) (1.561)

−× Intrafpmc -0.11∗∗ -0.09∗∗ -0.09∗∗∗(-2.686) (-2.346) (-2.795)

Per Capita GDPc -0.03∗∗ -0.01 -0.01 -0.02∗ -0.00(-2.636) (-1.108) (-1.178) (-1.715) (-0.390)

−× Intrafpmc -0.03∗∗∗ -0.01 -0.01 -0.02∗ -0.01(-3.269) (-1.138) (-1.320) (-2.024) (-0.628)

Distancec 0.08∗∗∗ 0.08∗∗∗ 0.08∗∗∗ 0.11∗∗∗(2.849) (3.631) (3.651) (4.301)

−× Intrafpmc -0.04∗∗∗ -0.05∗∗∗ -0.05∗∗∗ -0.06∗∗∗ -0.05∗∗∗(-2.806) (-4.811) (-4.440) (-4.961) (-4.151)

Tariffc 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.01(1.056) (1.122) (1.165) (0.425)

−× Intrafpmc -0.03∗ -0.03∗∗ -0.03∗∗ -0.02 -0.03∗∗∗(-1.986) (-2.617) (-2.397) (-1.596) (-3.125)

Sample Full Full Full Full w.o Tax H. FullCountry FE No No No No No YesFirm-Prod.-Mode FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes YesObservations 756,332 735,064 735,064 735,064 657,117 735,064Adj. R2 0.862 0.865 0.865 0.865 0.870 0.866Note: This table investigates the impact of effective taxe rate, GDP per capita, distance, tariffs, and taxhaven dummy on intra-firm and arm-length export prices. Effective tax rates are transformed as follows:(log(1 − τ)). All regressions include firm-product-exporting mode fixed effects. The last column furtherincludes country fixed effects. In column (5) we restrict the sample to countries not classified as tax havens.Robust standard errors clustered by destination are computed. Corresponding t-statistics are reported inparentheses. Significance levels: ∗p < 0.1, ∗∗p < 0.05, and ∗∗∗p < 0.01.

27

Table7:

Add

ition

alresults

,Effe

ctiveAv

erageTa

xRates

Dep

ende

ntvaria

bles:Ex

port

price

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

Intrafpmc×:

(1−τ c

)-0.05

-0.13

-0.14

-0.04

-0.01

-0.10∗

-0.10

-0.07

(-0.95

0)(-1.17

4)(-1.61

4)(-0.56

7)(-0.09

7)(-1.97

2)(-1.67

7)(-1.11

2)TaxHaven

c-0.11∗∗∗

-0.01

-0.08∗∗∗

-0.11∗∗

-0.05

-0.07∗∗∗

-0.09∗∗∗

-0.10∗∗∗

(-7.53

3)(-0.17

7)(-3.30

6)(-2.28

7)(-0.77

9)(-3.70

6)(-3.77

6)(-2.67

3)PerCapitaGDPc

-0.00

-0.00

-0.02

0.02

-0.04

-0.01

-0.01

-0.01

(-0.61

8)(-0.04

7)(-1.45

3)(1.505

)(-1.36

4)(-1.16

4)(-1.14

4)(-0.53

0)Distancec

-0.05∗∗∗

-0.06∗∗∗

-0.07∗∗∗

-0.04∗∗∗

-0.01

-0.05∗∗∗

-0.05∗∗∗

-0.06∗∗∗

(-4.97

1)(-3.58

6)(-5.17

0)(-3.47

3)(-0.16

6)(-4.92

5)(-5.35

6)(-4.69

5)Tariff c

-0.03∗∗∗

-0.03

-0.05∗∗∗

-0.02∗

0.01

-0.04∗∗∗

-0.04∗∗∗

-0.03∗∗

(-4.14

1)(-1.30

5)(-3.46

2)(-1.76

8)(0.371

)(-3.94

4)(-3.66

4)(-2.52

7)Sa

mple

Big

Small

Fren

chFo

reign

Hom

og.

Diff.

w/o

firms

firms

firms

MNEs

good

sgo

ods

who

lesale

All

Firm

-Prod.-M

odeFE

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Cou

ntry

FEYe

sYe

sYe

sYe

sYe

sYe

sYe

sNo

Cty-Sect.

FENo

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Observatio

ns71

6,15

868

6,58

057

1,87

245

8,99

811

,659

603,57

555

8,31

373

5,06

4Adj.R

20.86

80.86

90.87

60.87

10.84

70.88

50.86

80.93

2N

ote:

Thistableinvestigates

theim

pact

ofeff

ectiv

etaxe

rate,GDP

percapita,distan

ce,tariff

s,an

dtax

havendu

mmyon

intra-firm

andarm-le

ngth

expo

rtprices.Allregressio

nsinclud

efirm-produ

ct-exp

ortin

gmod

efix

edeff

ects.

Colum

n(1)focuseson

MNEs

who

seexpo

rtsalesareab

ovetheP7

5.Colum

n(2)

focu

seson

MNEs

who

seexpo

rtsalesarebe

low

theP2

5.Colum

n(3)exclud

eaffi

liatesof

foreignMNEs

locatedin

Fran

ce.Colum

n(4)exclud

eFren

chMNEs

.Colum

n(5)contains

only

theprod

ucts

classifi

edas

homogen

eous

inRau

chno

men

clature.

Colum

n(6)contains

only

theprod

ucts

classifi

edas

diffe

rentiatedin

Rau

chno

men

clature.

Colum

n(7)exclud

eMNEs

who

semainactiv

ityab

road

iswho

lesale.Rob

uststan

dard

errors

clusteredby

destinationarecompu

ted.

Colum

n(8)displaytheresults

with

Cou

ntry

andsector

fixed

effects.Correspon

ding

t-statist

icsarerepo

rted

inpa

renthe

ses.

Sign

ificanc

elevels:∗ p<

0.1,∗∗p<

0.05

,and

∗∗∗ p<

0.01.

28